Talk:Inertial damper

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This article states that "If a starship were to jump to warp speed without using inertial dampers, the members of the crew would almost certainly die as the rapid acceleration would throw them back in to the consoles and rear walls killing them instantly. Conversely, they would also be killed if a ship were to come out of warp but in this instance the crew would be thrown forward." However, in the definition of warp drive, its says that it works by creating a "warp bubble" (contraction of spacetime in front of the vessel and expansion behind it), and the vessel sits in a relative fixed point in space without any acceleration whatsoever, while the spacetime bubble is what's actually moving. If you consider the theory for warp drive to be correct, then the crew would feel no acceleration effects at all with when engaging or disengaging warp drive even with intertial dampers turned off. Am I the only one who sees a conflict here? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by68.55.104.203 (talk).

Although the inertial effects of being at full warp may be negligible, being inside the warp field's bubble, the inertial dampers are still necessary for sudden thrusts, which may occur as the starship enters warp.--Mike Nobody 02:51, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Even at impulse, the crew of a starship could end up as chunky-style salsa.--Mike Nobody 02:54, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)

So does the article for warp drive need to be altered as such, to reflect that fact, if not to preserve continuity within Star Trek? I realize impulse, and for that matter, modern rocketry (I will refer to all engine types henceforth as "conventional" meaning movement through spacetime utlizing Newton's law of action and reaction eg. rockets or impulse, and exotic, meaning warp or temporal drive, etc.) accelerates a spacecraft through spacetime itself. BUT, warp theory and other exotic means of propulsion in the star trek universe is sometimes vague and contradictory. Modern real life theories on the subject, such as the Alcubierre Drive (exotic), state that a vessel undergoes no acceleration when engaging this type of engine, owing to the fact again that the vessel is not actually moving at all, but rather spacetime around it is. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by68.55.104.203 (talk).

The dialogue from "The Ship" has O'Brien speculating that the inertial dampeners failed and that all on board were killed when the ship accelerated. He doesn't say anything about going to warp. So the contradiction is avoided, at least for now. I wouldn't be surprised to see it come up again in another reference though. I'll change the article. --9er 04:32, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I dont believe that inertial dampening would be required for warp, only for impulse and other sub-light speeds (but still very high velocities, also direction changes, etc) - a kind of inertial dampening would also be required for weapons, shuttles, and everything else which might put any kind of force on the ship. By this, I'm talking about like a shock absorber for torpedo launches, etc. Although their effectiveness in a vacuum could would be debatable (however easily testable). Without those, a torpedo launch could potentially send the ship flying in the opposite direction. This could be countered with a small thrust on the opposite side of the ship. Given all of this, inertial dampers would have to be a kind of blanket term for a large system of various methods and techniques for countering various forces which would affect the ship's velocity. --ShadowBlade989

The article is fine as-is. No further speculation is necessary, unless someone has a reference explaining how inertia could be suspended without some warp in space-time. Although real life facts and theories are good to measure against the accuracy of Star Trek canon. It's not a substitute at M/A. Leave real-life in real-life, for the most part.--Mike Nobody 04:34, 29 Oct 2005(UTC)/

I'm a little confused as to the exact necessity of inertial dampers. Are they required when a ship is travelling at constant high speed or only when it accelerates/deccelerates? – 81.154.232.137 17:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Both, I would imagine. They prevent the people aboard a starship from becoming bloodied paste on the back of the wall when the ship is in warp. This includes acceleration and deceleration. They also prevent impacts from shaking the ship too violently. For example, in "Timeless", the entire crew of Voyager was killed when the ship crash-landed because the inertial dampers were off-line. --From Andoria with Love 01:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Nova: My thinking so far - very thrown-together, so please feel free to pick it apart:

replicator/transporter tech gives you the ability to manage, not just the matter > energy > matter sequence, but also the ability to cause a body or object in transition to hold its form: we don't see people being transported from the top down on the way out, or bottom up on the way back to matter, like pyramids being built - so we can assume that the transporter can hold atoms/subatomic particles in their correct spatial positions during transportation/replication.

They're not like your gran making socks from a knitting pattern, a stage at a time and sequential - they know where things should go, and they hold particles in transition until the entire body is transported safely. And this is only an incidental function of what they actually do.

It's therefore not above belief that each ship can create a kind of lock/hold effect for all particles - crew, shipboard equipment, engines etc - ie an energetic sling/cradle, that holds each particle in place, compared to the reference point it's located at - during manoeuvres, even sub-warp, and this could be placed in the centre of the ship to protect the outer hull, thus explaining the ST series' reliance on saucer-shaped hulls for the main ship?

The only time inertia / momentum applies in classical mechanics is during acceleration / negative acceleration "deceleration"( the first time derivative of velocity, and the second time derivative of position) "basic kinematics". At constant velocity all objects are in motion at constant velocity. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by174.102.111.172 (talk).

Personally (going on current Physics) I believe that Inertial dampers are only required for sudden acceleration/ deceleration.
Once your're at the velocity required everything inside the ship will be travelling at the same speed so inertial dampening isnt required any longer, saying that, the inertial systems would be a crucial part of the ships systems and always need to be thinking ahead of the ships travel and expected deceleration.

There was once an episode of Bugs bunny where he was on a plane and it suddenly dived for the earth, it was depicted as going so fast that pieces of the plane were being ripped off etc, Bug's waited till the second the plane was about to hit and then just jumped out before it impacted thus landing safely; while the plane was transformed to a 1" chunk of metal.

Ok, I know the new movie said that a starship can't go to warp without it's external inertial dampeners offline... but we should be hesitant to apply that to the prime Star Trek Universe. Remember, the movie also showed the Enterprise having multiple warp cores, which it obviously doesn't have in the original series. Given how drastically different the specs of the movie Enterprise are from the original one, I don't think we can logically draw a correlation between the inertial dampeners of the two. Ergo, I suggest moving the tidbit about external intertial dampeners to an "Alternate Universe" section of this article, or create an entirely new "External Intertial Dampeners" article. DarthXor 07:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as the multiple warp cores goes, I belive they are the antimatter pods that are ejected with the warp core as a safety factor, because the warp core and the antimatter pods are the most dangerous objects on a starship ;). (ANTIHYDROGEN) – The preceding unsigned comment was added by174.102.111.172 (talk).

It says that there was an USS Enterprise refit between the two movies. In it, it explains that the multiple warp cores were replaced with one large one. 76.18.218.135 22:16, December 2, 2013 (UTC)

Which is the correct name, damper or dampener? In Star Trek (2009) for instance, Spock clearly asks Sulu "Have you disengaged the external inertial dampener?", and (while I could be mistaken) I seem to remember "inertial dampeners" rather than "inertial dampers" being what was most commonly heard in the various TV series. Marianne (talk) 10:57, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

I've also noticed and wondered this myself. I believe the term is inter-changeable. Whether you say "damper" or "dampener", it means the same thing. --| TrekFanOpen a channel 10:59, February 6, 2014 (UTC)